Random House has uncovered seven Seuss stories that were published in magazines in the 1950s but have never appeared as books. Acceptable reactions include “Happy as a clam, I am!” and “Oh, the fun words I’ll get to say!”
Publishers Weekly does a fine breakdown of the tales to be included in The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories. These are:
“The Bear, the Rabbit, and the Zinniga-Zanniga,” about a rabbit who is saved from a bear with a single eyelash; “Gustav the Goldfish,” an early, rhymed version of the book A Fish Out of Water; “Tadd and Todd,” a tale passed down via photocopy to generations of twins; “Steak for Supper,” about creatures who follow a boy home in anticipation of a steak dinner; “The Bippolo Seed,” in which a scheming feline leads an innocent duck to make a bad decision; “The Strange Shirt Spot,” which was the inspiration for the bathtub-ring scene in The Cat in the Hat Comes Back; and “The Great Henry McBride,” about a boy whose far-flung career fantasies are only bested by those of the real Dr. Seuss.
These stories are reportedly from an era that shows the good Doctor’s transition from a prose style to his trademark rhyme schemes, which means they’ll be of interest to children’s literature scholars as well as the children themselves. The anthology isn’t due out until Sept. 27, but that gives readers ample time to brush up on the rest of the set — and get fully in the loosey-goosey-Seussy mood. The whole lot will go for $15 in hardcover, a bargain for rare rhymes if there ever was one.